Plus ça change…

A new RedC out in tomorrow’s Sunday Business Post, which is largely as you were …. headline figures show net movements of 2% from FG to FF, and 1% from SocDems to Inds. Both would be in margin of error.

IPR seat projections as follows;

FG

30%

57

FF

19%

32

SF

19%

28

LB

9%

15

GP

2%

1

AAA/PBP

3%

2

SocDems

1%

1

Renua

2%

3

OTH

15%

19

100%

158

Given the small movement there’s not much to say – other than perhaps notice the lack of movement (Govt may have hoped Budget measures reaching people’s pockets might have pushed them up a bit. Soc Dems may be worried that the lift off hasn’t materialised just yet, but when you’re a small party in the margin of error, there’s only so much you can take from a single poll anyway. They do appear consistently at 1-2% however, and it seems they have yet to establish themselves out there (their 3 leaders got over 1% in the last General Election between them), and will be hoping to do so in the next month or so. Renua alternatively may take some hope from this, although they very much scrape 3 seats on this simulation, with only 1 seat comfortable…they will need to increase substantially on this if they want to get at least 1 bum at the cabinet table.

We are also told;

“The poll also gauged voters’ attitudes to the recovery and the general direction of the country. While over two thirds of voters (68 per cent) of voters say the country is “generally on the right track”, some 60 per cent say that “we need a change of government in order to deliver a fairer society”

Again, hard to say what this means in practice. Most partisans (the ones in opposition, anyway) will claim this means people want their party in Govt…however, every party think they are the party of ‘fairness’, it’s just a matter of who they think its currently unfair too…Renua would argue that their policies would be ‘fairer’ to the taxpayers, the hard left that they are ‘fairer’ to the disadvantaged….also supporting a change of Government pre-supposes a change of Govt in waiting, which, on current figures, would appear to be FG/FF or FG/SF. The likelihood of either (‘In The National Interest’) is something we will all have our views on, but few could claim, at this stage, that they are likely. A decent swing could make FF/SF/Inds mathematically possible, but would such a Govt last?